What I really want to see is the DNA sequence of an alien Grey

“Our study has sequenced 20 whole mitochondrial genomes and utilized next generation sequencing to obtain 3 whole nuclear genomes from purported Sasquatch samples. The genome sequencing shows that Sasquatch mtDNA is identical to modern Homo sapiens, but Sasquatch nuDNA is a novel, unknown hominin related to Homo sapiens and other primate species. Our data indicate that the North American Sasquatch is a hybrid species, the result of males of an unknown hominin species crossing with female Homo sapiens.

Hominins are members of the taxonomic grouping Hominini, which includes all members of the genus Homo. Genetic testing has already ruled out Homo neanderthalis and the Denisova hominin as contributors to Sasquatch mtDNA or nuDNA. “The male progenitor that contributed the unknown sequence to this hybrid is unique as its DNA is more distantly removed from humans than other recently discovered hominins like the Denisovan individual,” explains Ketchum.

“Sasquatch nuclear DNA is incredibly novel and not at all what we had expected. While it has human nuclear DNA within its genome, there are also distinctly non-human, non-archaic hominin, and non-ape sequences. We describe it as a mosaic of human and novel non-human sequence. Further study is needed and is ongoing to better characterize and understand Sasquatch nuclear DNA.”

Wait. Fully human mitochondrial DNA, which is inherited from your mother, so she assumes that all Sasquatches had human women as relatively recent ancestors, but at the same time, the nuclear DNA is some bizarre mish-mash that includes non-ape sequences? That makes no sense at all.

Well, there’s one way it makes sense: it’s the result of sloppy lab work and high levels of contamination, and a complete lack of discrimination on the part of the investigators. No details have been released yet, but I imagine that what they’re sequencing are from hair samples turned in by Bigfoot investigators: dirty, grimy hair samples collected by a mix of charlatans and naive, deluded hunters. I wonder if there are raccoon and possum genes in their sequences…

The paper has not been published, and I don’t see how making a press release about a paper in peer review would help. I expect that no reputable journal will touch it, and it will sink unpublished…except that the myth that Bigfoot DNA has been examined and found to be unique will live on.

But here’s what really bugs me: it’s from a DNA lab called DNA Diagnostics, Inc. They do forensics, paternity testing, and consulting/expert witnessing in the court system in Texas. Would you trust results from that lab? How many other labs doing forensic DNA testing are run by people who think they can identify Bigfoot in a sample? If Ketchum has dealt with any criminal cases, I foresee grounds for future court challenges in her future.

Color me untutored in the niceties of DNA analysis, but it seems the whole house of cards is based on “purported samples.” If your opening assumptions are questionable, your conclusions aren’t likely to be very trustworthy.

But here’s what really bugs me: it’s from a DNA lab called DNA Diagnostics, Inc. They do forensics, paternity testing, and consulting/expert witnessing in the court system in Texas. Would you trust results from that lab?

I’m sure a lot of unethical prosecutors and defense attorneys are now thinking: “If they confirmed some woman’s bigfoot story, I can trust them to give me exactly the results I want. So yes, I now plan on using them every time I have a DNA sample I need analyzed.”

What drives me buggy is how the entire discussion is presented as if she were talking about a sample from a KNOWN species, and not just some random, unknown pile of hair and dung… making statements about “Sasquatch nuclear DNA” as if it were a controlled sample from a known species. She doesn’t know what the fuck she has, but has no problem operating from a pre-determined conclusion without even a thought of using a qualifier like “supposed”.

“For starters, Berger notes that while Ketchum has 27 years of genetic research experience during her career as a veterinarian, her company, DNA Diagnostics, has received an “F” rating from the Better Business Bureau.

But more important, Ketchum has not allowed scientific peer review of her findings.”

But here’s what really bugs me: it’s from a DNA lab called DNA Diagnostics, Inc. They do forensics, paternity testing, and consulting/expert witnessing in the court system in Texas. Would you trust results from that lab? How many other labs doing forensic DNA testing are run by people who think they can identify Bigfoot in a sample? If Ketchum has dealt with any criminal cases, I foresee grounds for future court challenges in her future.

I end up having to get results from commercial labs from time to time and while some of the labs are certainly pretty questionable, I think its very important to remember these are enterprises run to make a profit, not university labs or state run labs.

I can say with a pretty high degree of confidence that if you pick out some random private gene testing lab, bring them a dirty hair sample (or a bagle as the case may be) and say “I want you to test the DNA on this sample” they will say “sure! that will be $300”

In a way that’s not terribly different from the crap cops always bring in as evidence and ask to be gene tested. “Oh, you swabbed some blood from a stain on the floor of a bar? wonderful!”

The difference between the good labs and the bad labs is that the good ones will be fully open about cross-contamination in the sample and the possibilities their report is completely off. The bad ones will either leave you to interpret the report or will just say what the person paying them wants them to say, like “we show the testing to be an unknown species.”

Sounds like an unethical genetic experiment to me. Someone cross-bred two primates, extracted the n-DNA from the resulting hybrid and used it to replace the n-DNA in a human egg cell. I wonder who/what gestated the result.

The difference between the good labs and the bad labs is that the good ones will be fully open about cross-contamination in the sample and the possibilities their report is completely off. The bad ones will either leave you to interpret the report or will just say what the person paying them wants them to say, like “we show the testing to be an unknown species.”

This disgusts me on an even deeper limit. Telling people what they want to hear is one thing, but then publishing a press release on bad science is a whole new level of filth. She must be very deluded.

This true Chas, which is why they are dependent on glycolytic ATP production (Also, as I recall, why they don’t use any of the O2 transported). But I get a bit pedantic when people say that RBCs in general never have any DNA. Frogs people frogs!

What worries me is that it’s a forensics lab doing the analysis, and if all of that is from contamination, then… That is some terrible, terrible lab work which should not be allowed near any kind of contentious case, civil or criminal. *shudder* Heck, we have bad lab conditions, but even we manage to extract only-human DNA from all our samples. :P